Silk and Sun

One of Aoife's favorite things to play with is a square piece of silk. Okay, several square pieces of silk. She wraps them around her and wears them as dresses, flies them behind her like wings or a cape, wraps her dolls and animals in them, etc., etc., etc. So, with my playschool about to open again, clearly we needed more. I ordered 10 silks (last time I ordered one long piece and cut and hemmed them myself--trying to hem them was definitely not worth the few dollars I saved ordering it uncut) and when they arrived, we decided we would dye them with food coloring. All the instructions I found online said to microwave the dyed silks to set the color. Not having a microwave, I pondered my other choices. Why, the solar cooker would do the trick! Here is what we did (should you ever find yourself in my very same predicament-on a sunny day):
First we soaked the silks in vinegar and water:

We then mixed some gel food coloring into the water and placed each colored silk in a plastic bag:

We placed these in the solar cooker for several hours. (Fast? No, but we were in no hurry):

And ta-da: